S T U F F

Asylum Heights, the online graphic novel experience; chronicling the quixotic misadventures of a group of stoned bohemian anarchists as they bumble through space, time and parallel dimensions with a decrepit apartment building

With a hurt wrist one week, and the traditional mid December influenza the next, I've found myself rather behind. Not just in terms of this little corner of the interwebbing tubes, but things I actually need (Read:paid) to do as well. As we are less then a week away from the festival of Saturnalia, this had created a bit of a time crunch for me, so I've opted to simply give the Chilean soccer team I kidnapped to make this comic, the rest of the year off. Please have a happy Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Festivus, or what have you. Also, if you're one of those holiday opposed folks, I suppose today is the unofficial wear a plunger on your head day. That sounds like fun, and no one says you can't talk like a pirate as well. Asylum Heights will resume on its regular Monday/Thursday schedule on Monday January 7th, 2013. ...Assuming we aren't wiped out this Friday by a prophecy that never existed.

Tragically, I'm not ambidextrous, though I did fence left handed back in my summers as a ghost pirate on the black sea. It was to throw people off guard, though the smoke machines and projectors probably did most of that. Not to mention the modified pneumatic nail gun with those cute, little darts, coated in that powerful psychotropic compound, from that one hitherto unknown South American tree frog. Back in a simpler, better age, when a man could make a decent living doing something he could really believe in.

I've been working on a little project called "Operation Max Martin." Max is the Swedish producer who makes all pop music in the western world, from Britney Spears to N'Sync, to that new chick, Justin Bieber, they're all faces for Max's carefully formulated ear heroin. The master plan for Operation Max Martin, is to create a Pop song so catchy, so mesmerizing on a primordial level that it could rewrite the human brain and lead directly to total global domination. So, needles to say it struck my interest a short while ago when a portly Korean rapper known by Psy, managed to beat me to it. But wait! You say, Gangnam Style is just a great tune, with a catchy beat and very clever lyrics that most of us anglophones don't have a clue are clever lyrics! Well my friend, I'm not the only one who known the truth. No, this song is a bold new weapon in neural meta virus technology! The latest in a long line of culturally based weapons of mass destruction, such as how the Beatles brought down the Soviet Union, or when Hitler was stopped with the awesome power of the world's funniest joke! (Carefully implanted by soldiers who didn't speak German.) This is a summons to arms! We can't permit a Pop song gap!

I have dedicated a vast portion of my nefarious army of super villainy (Phil) to researching this phenomena. However, much like the sun, it needs to be studied indirectly least it transforms one's retinas into a pile of charred goo (sorry Phil, live and learn.) Way, way back in the 1990's there was a barometer for determining cultural success, being when one's song was parodied by Weird Al Yankovic, or when one appeared on the Simpsons (Like Al Yankovic.) But society has moved on, and technology has advanced to the point where we can directly analyze the subtleties of the zeitgeist in real time. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us torn to the YouTube-o-scope-o-vision-o-meter, and look closely at the cultural reflection of this particular arrangement of air pressure wave patterns...

Acoustic

8-bit

Western

Klingon

With close to a billion views on Youtube, and bouts of spontaneous street dancing, we could be facing a repeat of the great rock war of 1978.

Consider this a warning world governments, for I too am a man bulging with ideas instead of muscles, filled with such intensity I one-shot my coffee before it even cools down.

An open letter to the Cannon engineering team responsible for creating my all-in-one office machine.

Dear sirs, madams, or potentially nightmarish horrors from beyond that stars what feed on human anguish,

As a professional super villain, I would like to applaud your efforts, and congratulate you on your truly brilliant acts of nefariousness you have so expertly unleashed upon the world. You managed to take a vary simple racket of charging $9 billion a barrel for printer ink, and transformed it into a malicious stratagem of pure beauty. To lock out all other features of the machine whenever an ink cartridge is low (regardless of the fact that the operations in question do not involve printing) forcing your end user to rush out to buy ink, even when they don't need it, is quite a clever business strategy. However, designing it to also keep all ink nozzles open, whenever this wifi network office machine is "on" thereby drying the ink in the cartridge until it registers as "empty" regardless of ink consumption, is a truly ingenious insight. Truly, from one malevolent misanthrope to another, I applaud you; Well played.

There is, however, I am so sad to report, the other hand, about to drop the other shoe. Which is that sometimes your end user just so happens to live in a secret subterranean arctic (inactive) volcano lair, and they happen to find it rather difficult to bop out to Staples during regular office hours to pick up a replacement ink cartridge to unlock the completely un-ink-related features of your scanner/printer/shredder/demonic portal. It should also be noted that the sort of person that tends to live in a secret subterranean arctic (inactive) volcano lair, also tends to be more of the egocentric, maniacal, megalomaniacal, psychotic, scramble your atoms across the cosmos with a hyper death beam sort of person. So it pains me to inform you that the flying cyborg monkeys have already been unleashed, and instructed to hunt you down to become the first test subjects of the bio-inverter ray. I would like to apologize for any inconvenience having your insides become your outsides may cause, but it is simply a matter of professional procedure, and I do hope you understand.

Sincerely, Dave the Cat. B.S.V.
(Bachelors of Super Villainy.)

To everyone not getting your various internal organs transposed to a fascinating new location, please go forth an enjoy the greatest holiday the year has to offer.

Monday's comic this weeks is actually Tuesday's comic this week, as I wouldn't want to interfere with a long weekend containing two of my favorite holidays. The first being Columbus Day, a day traditionally celebrated by accosting strangers on the street and inundate them with the overwhelming inaccuracies and blatant stupidity of the modern Columbus mythology. (As I understand it.) I find it an enjoyable annual custom, and in its observance I am far from alone.

This Monday was also Canadian Thanks Giving up here in the super secret Arctic Ultra Doom Sphere Lab (worst acronym ever.) A holiday made ever more special by the minions finally killing the nuclear abomination that's been terrorizing Zeta Sector. So given the situation, we did what anyone would, stuffed it, and had roasted monstrosity. We whipped up the traditional dishes, let those MI5 super spies out of the shark cage, and we all joined together in friendship and harmony like in some super science Norman Rockwell painting... until the cold sweats and hallucinations kicked in.

It's important to take the time every now and then to really reflect on ourselves and take thanks for the things that are really important for us. Really significant things like our friends, our family, or the ability to pass off a super villain training camp as performance art. Personally, I'm truly thankful for the opportunity to live in a time and place where something like alien belly dancing to an original Klingon opera (be' joy' luqaSa) can actually exist.

Q'plah to all, and to all a good night. Truly, the world that surrounds us is both strange and magnificent.

It seems as though I've hardly spent any time in the interwebbing tubes this summer. The net even discovered K-pop over the warmer months, and I completely missed the opportunity to capitalize on it. After all, there are certain emotions that can only be expressed in Korean.

My tiny blackened misanthropic heart has managed a complete beat of joy. John K, (creator of Ren and Stimpy, the Goddamn George Liquor show, and the Ripping Friends) has successfully crowd funded his new animated short, Cans Without Labels. Oh, callooh callay, I chortle, what a marvelous day. Kickstarter has jumped well past the basic funding requirements, but was still nowhere near enough to provide the world with a bonus Sody Pop cartoon trailer. I suppose it's too much to ask to have everything and a slice of cake. Though this may well be the start of something beautiful, perhaps even a grass roots supported Spumco Nouveau.

Which brings us to another shocking twist in the world of professional new media, the bittersweet news from Channel Awesome; Doug Walker and company have formally announced the cancellation of easily my favorite web series, the Nostalgia Critic. While I am saddened to see it pass, the fact that it's being replaced by a bigger, snazzier show to take internet comedy serials to the next level, does soften the blow. Given that that level is eleven. So, I'd just like to say to Doug, Rob and company, that I'm eagerly awaiting the new show. There is that very special kind of love, like the love only a megalomaniacal super villain can have for internet comedians. Though the problem remains, with no Nostalgia Critic, and James still working on his movie, how am I supposed to stay distracted by partially remembered pop culture from my youth? I'll have no choice but to finish the ultra doom sphere, and blow up the planet. It's just, the deluxe model has so much more planet exploding capacity. Would you really like the planet to explode with anything less then a really ostentatious explosion? ... wait, I can enjoy the completely accurate adventures of the most beautiful human to ever exist, Kim Jong Un!

Made by animators who voluntarily left their families and refused payment due to their love of Kim Jong Un.

Starting in South Korean, zipping around the Pacific and coming to a rest in North Korea, that's how I roll. Oh, College Humor, if humanity is spared from the horrible ultra doom of the ultra doom sphere, it's because of you.

Site news, check. Pop culture references, check. Links to more talented people... check. That should do it, see you in 2117.

Hey kids, just thought I'd let you know about the temporal wormhole that sucked the last weeks comics a month into the future! Quite incredible really, though thankfully I was able to find a gap in Olympic Beach Volleyball to travel into the future and retrieve both Thursday's and Monday's pages. I was worried that I may have just accidentally placed the wrong date on them, but the tech boys down in the applied doomsday technologies lab called it an "ID: Ten-T" error, so it must be fairly common.

Far more importantly however, I need to tell the world that my hero, John Kricfalusi, needs your help. A man we owe a debt of gratitude for giving us wonders like the greatest animated show of all time, Ren and Stimpy... and this Bjork video:

With the tragic loss of Spumco a few years ago, I was crushed. Now, the planets have aligned, and a new hope shines for a bright and glorious future, where our children can live free and happy! A hopeful future that we might achieve together with the help of Kickstarter.

With the support of the good people of the Internet, we, the sentient beings of the Universe could enjoy en entirely new animated short; Cans Without Labels. Please allow me to get out of the man's way:

Wait you fool! Before you go breaking your monitor trying to shove money into it, you should know that for a mere $10 000 pledge, you can actually be in the cartoon! Yes, that's right, you can be just a cool as Tenacious D. Once you're done mopping your blown mind off the wall, go ahead and give him your money. Halfway though the donation time, halfway to the goal. Why are you still here? What are you, an eediot?